1. Field of Invention
The invention relates to a communication apparatus provided with an electronic address book in which voice telephone numbers, facsimile telephone numbers, and e-mail (electronic mail) addresses are registered and managed together, on a recipient-by-recipient basis.
2. Description of Related Art
Recently, facsimile machines and cellular phones are used for many purposes in various communication modes and accomplish e-mail transmission in addition to facsimile transmission and voice telephone calls. Such communication apparatuses are typically provided with an electronic address book in which voice telephone numbers, facsimile telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, and other information about recipients are previously registered. The information about recipients is retrieved with the touch of a key to easily start communication.
An electronic address book has a database structure in which various kinds of data are registered together, regardless of the difference in communication mode, to facilitate registration and reference to the data. A voice telephone number, facsimile telephone number, and e-mail address are registered in each record, in association with the name of each recipient. Additionally, a postal address, date of birth, phonetic notation of the name, and the like can be registered in the record. When the electronic address book is called up prior to communication, all of the names of the recipients are displayed. Upon the designation of a desired name by the user, communication with the designated recipient is promptly started.
A voice telephone number, facsimile telephone number, and e-mail address are all not necessarily required to be registered in a record of the electronic address book, and there may be a record containing blank fields depending on the recipient. For example, in a record about a recipient who has only a voice telephone number, the facsimile telephone number field and the e-mail address field are blank.
The conventional electronic address book displays all the names of the recipients regardless of the presence and absence of the blank fields in the records. For example, when the user calls up the electronic address book to send an e-mail message, the user must find a target recipient from among all the displayed recipients including recipients who have no e-mail address. Therefore, it is time-consuming to operate the electronic address book to designate a recipient who has recipient information corresponding to a desired communication mode.